Poland as only Ally unaware of Ribbentrop-Molotov secret protocol 'knifed in the back' by Soviets 78 yrs ago
Exactly 78 years ago, on September 17, 1939, just days after the Nazi Germany's invasion of Poland, the country was attacked by the Soviet Union. Coming as a total shock, the assault was described by historians as the country "being knifed in the back".
The Red Army's attack on Poland was in line with the Soviet-German Treaty of August 23, 1939, referred to as the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact (see: NOTE) which effectively partitioned Poland between the two countries.
While the invasion from the west, by Hitler's Germany, had been long time coming, the assault from the east took Poland completely by surprise.
Not least because, in the days following Germany's attack on Poland on September 1, 1939, the Soviet side made a show of neutrality. Poland's then Foreign Minister Jozef Beck recalled that "The behaviour of the Soviet ambassador couldn't be faulted, he went so far as to express willingness to discuss the supply of some goods by the Soviet Union. I asked ambassador Grzybowski to sound Molotov out about what supplies the Soviets could consider and expected him to take action to secure the transit of our allies' supplies for Poland".
This masquerade was possible because Poland was kept ignorant of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact's secret protocol, even though its Western Allies had been made aware of it.
Since the third day of the war, the Germans had been urging Moscow on to seize the land assigned to it under the agreement. But Stalin hesitated, waiting to see how Great Britain and France would respond to Hitler's invasion of Poland, as well as gauging the Polish army's resistance to the German aggression.
By mid-September, he decided he had seen enough and that the invasion could proceed. It was duly launched on September 17.
"The expression 'knife in the back' is the most apt description for this situation", professor of history Wieslaw Wysocki told PAP.
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NOTE: On August 23, 1939, the foreign ministers of Nazi Germany and Soviet Union, Joachim von Ribbentrop and Vyacheslav Molotov, respectively, signed a neutrality pact that, in fact, divided Poland and several other countries between the two powers.
The non-aggression pact, signed in Moscow, in the presence of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, contained a secret protocol.
This protocol laid down the German and Soviet spheres of influence, with regard to such countries as Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, and Romania.
The second point of the protocol referred specifically to Poland. It said the German and Soviet spheres of interest in Poland would be divided by the rivers Narew, Vistula and San.
The signatories also agreed to "determine amicably", in view of future political developments, whether Poland should remain as a independent country and in what shape.
The protocol was to remain strictly confidential.
According to the noted Polish historian, professor Pawel Wieczorkiewicz, the two countries had been in contact since April, on the pretext of negotiating a trade deal.
On August 21, Stalin agreed for Ribbentrop to come to Moscow, provided that the non-aggression pact would include an agreement on foreign policy.
"Ribbentrop arrived on August 23. This extraordinary haste was caused by the fact that Hitler decided to attack Poland within three days", professor Wieczorkiewicz explained.
The German historian, professor Klaus Zernack, pointed out that following the signing of the pact, "Hitler could rejoice at having all his enemies, present and future, in the West and in the East, in his pocket".
"He owed it to the favourable attitude of Stalin, who seems to have valued peace with Germany, linked to tempting gains in Poland, more than European security", professor Zernack added.
The historian wrote that "because of this, the Soviet foreign policy of the late 1930's is clearly co-responsible for undermining that security and eventually - for the catastrophe".
"So the Soviet Union, having signed a pact with Hitler, played an important part in the Second World War, from its very first day", professor Zernack concluded. (PAP)
